How to profile your own customers

Have you ever thought to ask your customers what they think of your product or service? Have you asked them what magazines and newspapers they read? What products would they like to see you develop?

By profiling your customer database you can understand what it is that makes your customers “tick”, where is best to advertise, what messages they like to hear etc etc. Different age groups or sexes may have different opinions.

You may be surprised to learn that many companies achieve a response rate of over 50% through sending out printed and/or email survey questionnaires. But to do this you have to make sure your questionnaire is focussed on the customer; relevant and thoroughly explains why you are collecting this information.

Here are some top tips on how to get a good response to your customer questionnaires:

1. Make it simple – tick boxes and pre-printed information are quick and quantifiable when collecting results. Also leave space for free text should the respondent have strong feelings they wish to elaborate on. The free text is not easily measurable but will give you a strong insight and, hopefully, some good testimonials.

2. Provide a sweetener – free gifts can work, but if you don’t have the budget for this then simply by saying something like “Your answers will help us improve our service to you and help ensure we meet your needs correctly” can create a good rapport and trust between your business and your customers.

3. Make the questions relevant – ask questions that are relevant to what it is your business does. Don’t start quizzing customers about their cat food preferences if you sell wallpaper or they will wonder why you ask!

4. Make sure the instructions are clear – give examples of how to fill the form in. Show a working example of a dummy question.

5. Don’t overload the questionnaire with questions – keep plenty of clear space to make it look easy and quick to fill in. Don’t have long sections, use sub headings where necessary. Don’t make it long and tedious.

6. Don’t make personal information mandatory – some people may not feel comfortable filling in their personal information, but you would still value their opinions. Where personal information is collected make sure that you state that it will not be shared with third parties (if you are indeed keeping the information just for your own use).

7. Thank them for their time – be polite and thank your customers for their input and tell them you value their opinions.

If you need some help finding out what your customers think of you then contact us!